


Beauty

by MidLight (TomAyto10)



Series: Indulgence, really.... [9]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: (very small mention), Blood, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Pining, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 21:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8301371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomAyto10/pseuds/MidLight
Summary: Beautiful things don't belong in this world.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Audrey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Audrey/gifts).



  


There aren't beautiful things in this world. 

Kenny knows this from experience, from the life he lives vigorously.

Everything beautiful is trampled, is bruised and broken beyond recognition, is snuffed out like a candle flame in the darkest night.

Mostly by the world, sometimes by his own two hands. He remembers countless people whose throats he's sliced open, he remembers that beautiful lady, blonde of her hair, the panic and utter fear in her eye. Beautiful even with blood dripping from her split neck.

Beautiful things don't belong in this world.

  


“Kenny, you're bleeding.”

Kenny blinks, looking at the king. Uri is watching him, gaze focused on his curled fist. 

He is bleeding, his knuckles are raw and torn, and scratches drip red like gurgling tar. 

Kenny laughs at it. He didn't feel it. “Would you look at that.” he says and pushes the bleeding hand into his coat, grabbing a ragged old handkerchief.  He wipes at the blood, rough and uncaring. 

“Is that from…”

“From a shitty little pig of a man. Squealed like one before I cut him open.” he ties the handkerchief, slightly struggling to fold it tight over his own hand. 

Uri is silent, and Kenny doesn't have to look up to know that his face has gone blank and unreadable. 

“Did he suffer?”

Kenny still doesn't look up,  getting annoyed at how the cloth won't fold right. He thinks back. Suffer?

His fists, crushing bone and knocking out teeth, his blade wiping away the sweat that dripped from the man's temple, before sliding slow and deep across his throat, exposing the red shine of muscle and blood. Suffer. That piggy little man lived a good life, before he got greedy, before he went and looked where he shouldn't of. He never had to fight every second of his existence trying to survive, he never had to rip money from dead hands or eat vomit from the streets. 

“Nah. He didn't suffer.”

Uri sighs. 

Kenny is still focused on bandaging himself, so all he hears is Uri moving, the squeak of the bed, the light patter of his feet. He's not worried, doesn't feel the need to look at where the other is going or what he's doing. 

Kenny doesn't care, but then a hand comes over his and the Uri is kneeling in front of him, fingers pulling at the cloth. 

Kenny’s fist almost closes over those fingers. 

Uri is looking at his hands, and Kenny’s body goes hot, adrenaline spiking under his skin like pinpricks of heat. 

Uri’s head is bowed, the crown of finest gold that is his hair shifts and trickles over his neck. His robe is white, sometimes almost transparent  in the candles, the shape of a shadowed slim figure beneath, and his feet folded back, exposing the curve of his ankle. 

Kenny breathes. 

Beautiful.

Kenny pulls away quickly, making his face grin maliciously when Uri looks up at him. 

He usually gets fear as a result of his grins, but Uri has never feared him. It boils something in the pit of his stomach, not anger, most certainly not hate.

Longing, deep and ancient, want so viciously, so pure it makes Kenny clench his teeth.

“Hey now, Uri. Spoil me this much and I might actually stick around.”

Uri’s eyelashes flutter, pale and so soft. He doesn't look up, but Kenny can see the smallest curve of a smile.

The boiling burns like acid in him, hotter, thicker.

Uri throws aside the dirty cloth and raises up something into the light. 

It's satin, a square of white so fine that it almost feels alive as it sweeps across Kenny’s skin. The edges are gold lined, like Uri’s hair. Uri carefully folds and lifts it to Kenny’s limp hand.

Kenny immediately pulls away, his expression hard but eyes searching. 

“You have a bad habit of kneeling in front of people, Uri.”

Uri looks up, his eyes steady. Blue, like the damn sky that stretches haughtily above them, like rare gems Kenny's stained with blood as he pries them from the gnarled clutches of men.

“I only seem to do it around you.” Uri almost sounds like he's teasing and Kenny goes still, panic in his blood. Uri takes the opportunity to take his hand. Uri's hand is unscathed and glowing in the light. Kenny looks, like he often does, at the skin of his forearm where the scar of his knife piercing through would be, and sees nothing. Sometimes, he feels like he's been cheated in  failing to make his mark on a king, but it's often washed away with the feeling of gratitude that Uri doesn't have that reminder. His job now is to keep Uri untouched and pure.

Uri's hand moves slowly, ties the handkerchief, pulling the ends of the delicate cloth into knots in the middle of his palm. Kenny lets him, breathing even, staring. 

Then Uri stands, an elegant motion, and suddenly he's looking down at Kenny. From this angle, he can see evidence of suffering, true suffering. Dark under his eyes from the nightmares, the tremble of his lips, and the lines of stress that are starting to form. 

Kenny wants to reach out and touch him, pull his small frame to him and feel his pulse, to know that he's alive and real. Uri wavers as he stands and Kenny’s heart is racing. 

Uri trembles once and reaches down to clasp at Kenny cold fingers. “Thank you,” he says, and Kenny doesn't know what he's thankful for. It doesn't matter, he takes it, content in something so small. Odd for a greedy little shit like him. 

Uri moves away, the light pierces through his white robe and Kenny sees the outline of his figure, the gold of his hair lit up like the sun. 

Beautiful. 

“Can you stay tonight?” Uri asks as he sits on his bed, small and huddled. Kenny gets up, shrugs off his jacket and throws it over the chair before plopping down on the elegant couch, booted feet and all. 

“Don't mind if I do.”

He crosses his arms and pulls his hat over his eyes, listening for Uri's breaths to even out. 

When they do, Kenny looks at him. The candle is still burning, making long shadows out of everything and Uri looks haunting and tortured in it.

Beautiful. 

Kenny touches at the satin wrapped around his hand, his fist closing so tight that he's no doubt bleeding harder into the cloth. Like he's mingling his filthy blood with a piece of Uri. Kenny curls tighter. 

All his life, he's learned that there is no more beautiful things in this world. They all get crushed, torn to pieces by those that are maddened by it, used until it's nothing but an empty shell, eaten alive by the world, or infected by the inside out. 

But as his gaze drifts over Uri in the flickering candles light, it's the first time he's glad that he's wrong. 

**Author's Note:**

> SNK ruined me


End file.
